How Did He Prepare Them?
How Did He Prepare Them?
The Lord ascended into heaven and left His disciples to serve the Church.
But before He left them, and before entrusting them with such a serious responsibility, He prepared them for ministry.
So, how did He prepare them?
In fact, throughout the ages and since the earliest stages of history, the Lord has had many different ways of preparing His servants for ministry.
From the Beginning
• He prepared Abraham, the father of the patriarchs and prophets, through obedience and pilgrimage—through the tent and the altar. Abraham followed Him,
“not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
• He prepared Joseph the righteous through many trials: the jealousy of his brothers, being thrown into a pit, sold as a slave to the house of Potiphar, and later subjected to temptation by his master’s wife, who falsely accused him, resulting in his imprisonment. God also prepared him by granting him the gift of interpreting dreams.
• God prepared David in a special way.
After being merely a young boy, “ruddy, with bright eyes and handsome appearance” (1 Samuel 17:42), tending sheep and skillful in playing the harp, God made him a mighty man of valor—able to confront a lion and a bear and defeat them to rescue a lamb from the flock (1 Samuel 17:36).
God also prepared him with zeal, courage, and holy boldness, so that he went out to face Goliath the giant in faith, saying:
“The battle is the Lord’s… This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand” (1 Samuel 17:46–47).
And he defeated the giant.
God further prepared David by allowing King Saul to rise against him with jealousy and violence, pursuing him from wilderness to wilderness, seeking to kill him, even attempting to turn Michal his wife and Jonathan his friend against him. All this was permitted by God to refine David, transforming him from a gentle poet and musician into a man fit for kingship.
When David became king, God allowed further trials: troubles from Joab the commander of his army, the rebellion of Absalom his son, the betrayal of Ahithophel, and the insults and curses of Shimei the son of Gera. All these deeply affected David’s prayers, psalms, and spiritual experiences, so that he could say:
“If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive…”
“Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers” (Psalm 124:2–3, 7).
• God also prepared Samuel, allowing him to grow up in the temple from childhood, serving the house of God in Shiloh. He prepared him through visions and divine conversations while he was still a child. The Lord was with him until he became a great prophet, worthy to anoint kings—Saul first, then David. The Spirit of the Lord would come upon those whom he anointed (1 Samuel 10; 16).
• God even prepared Jeremiah before his birth.
Thus He said to him:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you” (Jeremiah 1:5).
And He told him:
“I have made you this day a fortified city and an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land… They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you” (Jeremiah 1:18–19).
In the History of the Church
We also see many examples of the Lord preparing His saints throughout Church history.
• God prepared Saint Anthony the Great with a teachable spirit and readiness to receive the word of God. As soon as he heard in church the verse:
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21),
he immediately went and sold all his possessions and gave the proceeds to the poor.
He was also deeply moved by seeing his father dead and cried out, “Where are your greatness and riches? You left everything against your will; but I will leave everything of my own will.”
God prepared him by what he learned from the ascetics living near the village; he was like a bee, gathering nectar from every flower. God also prepared him through the counsel of a woman who uncovered herself to bathe. When he rebuked her, she mocked him, saying, “If you were truly a monk, you would live in the inner desert; this place is not suitable for monks.” He accepted her words as coming from God and went into the inner desert.
God prepared him through intense spiritual warfare with demons—through visions, sounds, and even physical attacks that left him between life and death. Yet he endured, saying to them, “If God has given you authority over me, who am I to resist God? But if He has not given you authority, none of you can harm me.” He would then chant the Psalms. Having overcome the demons, they feared him, and later he cast out demons by the power of God.
• God also prepared Saint Athanasius from his youth with exceptional maturity of mind and deep understanding of the Scriptures. While still a young man, he authored two important theological works: On the Incarnation of the Word and Against the Pagans. God prepared him through the love of Pope Alexander, who took him to the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, where Athanasius’ talents became evident in refuting the Arians and in formulating the Creed of Faith.
He was chosen patriarch while still young, around the age of thirty, becoming the twentieth Pope of the See of St. Mark. God then prepared him further through severe persecutions by the Arians and even by the emperor himself. He was exiled from his see four times to the West, where he preached, taught, explained the orthodox faith, and established churches. Thus the Church honored him with the title “the Apostolic.”
The Apostles of Christ
How did Christ prepare His disciples during the three years or more they spent with Him?
• First, He prepared them through good example.
They lived with Him as consecrated persons, moving from place to place, observing His life, His conduct, and His dealings with people, taking His life as their model.
• He prepared them through teaching, of two kinds: public teaching addressed to crowds and individuals, attended by the disciples; and private teaching exclusively between Him and them. They received this teaching deeply, so that Peter once said to Him:
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
• He prepared them through a life of asceticism.
He Himself had no home or permanent place of ministry, and they became like Him. They expressed this by saying:
“See, we have left all and followed You” (Mark 10:28).
He taught them complete dedication, detachment from family and possessions, saying:
“Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts” (Matthew 10:9).
• He prepared them through remarkable models of service and universal love.
He showed compassion for the hungry, saying at the miracle of the five loaves and two fish:
“I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way” (Matthew 15:32).
He loved the sick, healed incurable diseases, gave sight to the blind, delivered those possessed by demons, and healed all kinds of illnesses, laying His hands on each one. Thus,
“He went about doing good” (Acts 10:38).
All this was also a form of teaching.
• He prepared them through practical training, granting them authority over unclean spirits and saying:
“Preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:7–8).
When they returned rejoicing, saying, “Even the demons are subject to us in Your name,” He replied:
“Do not rejoice in this… but rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:17, 20).
• He prepared them with intense focus, planting faith, strength, knowledge, and love for others in their hearts. He showed them how ministry can take place anywhere—on the road, in the fields, on the mountain, or by the shore of the lake—and they absorbed this way of life from Him.
• He prepared them especially through His words before going to Gethsemane and the Cross, through His promise of the Holy Spirit, His appearances to them after the Resurrection to remove their doubts and strengthen their faith, and through the forty days He spent with them speaking
“of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
During this time, He delivered to them all the traditions of the Church, its rites and sacraments, entrusted them with the teaching, and commanded them to teach all nations and baptize them. If they forgot anything, the Holy Spirit would remind them of all that He had said.
• Yet after all this, He told them:
“Stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
And what was that power?
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Thus, He taught them to care for the Samaritans, whom the Jews avoided, and to preach among the Gentiles, whom they once considered enemies.
• Finally, He promised to be with them always, to the end of the age, granting them the Holy Spirit and many gifts to assist them in ministry:
“They went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs” (Mark 16:20).
